Chapter 8: LIAM
“Daidi, are you spying on the stranger from yesterday?” I hurriedly close the curtains like a little boy caught spying on his crush. I had been peeping through the
curtains to see if I could catch a glimpse of Cara, I was wondering whether she had left for work.
“What? No, not at all. Just adjusting the curtains.” I say awkwardly shifting the curtains and dusting imaginary dirt off the curtains.
“But you were peeping through the window.” She says looking confused.
I try my best to keep on a straight face even though her facial expression isn’t letting me successfully do that.
“Our ethics teacher says it's bad to lie.” She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a look that seems to say spill it!
“Daddy’s not lying. Now, go get your school bag so daddy can drop you off.” I refuse to give in till the end.
“My hair, Daidi?” I rejoice inwardly for the change in subject.
“What about your hair Princess?” “I want a different hairstyle.”
“Baby, daddy doesn't know what hairstyle to do for you besides, daddy loves this one better.”
“I don't like this one. I want a ponytail.”
She picks a strand of her bouncy golden curls and twirls it along her fingers.
Thank goodness it's something I know. I pack her hair into a neat ponytail leaving no stray strand out.
“Can you add this?” she says pointing a yellow butterfly clip at me.
I add the clip to her hair which makes her very happy.
Day by day my baby girl keeps growing. I miss Fiona so much. Every time I measure Laura’s height and she has grown even an inch, every time she reached a new milestone, I always wished Fiona was here to witness it with me.
I grab Laura’s lunch pack and school bag and we head off to her school.
“Daidi, will you come pick me up?” She asks immediately she sees her school gate. Her friend, Trisha is already running towards our car to welcome her
“Baby, daddy has a meeting that's going to take really long, but guess what? Aunt Veronica is going to pick you and bring you straight to the office.”
“I don’t want to go to the office. It’s boring. I want to go to greet grandma.”
“Grandma’s super busy but she’ll pick you up for the weekend and Veronica will play with you and read you books. Your favourite.”
“Okay, fine.”
I drop her off at school and head straight for work.
I check the time to see it’s 08:15. The moment everyone sees me, they begin to adjust.
“Good day sir.” Veronica says collecting my briefcase. “Good day sir.” Cara says.
“ it’s a good thing you’ve met my executive assistant. Veronica, starting from today, finance reports to you and every other department on the first and second floor. Cara here will take over my meeting scheduling, minutes during business meetings, business trips arrangements and should in case I’ll be requiring extra hand on businesses outside Dublin, she’ll go with me and she’ll be in charge of reports from 3rd, 4th and 5th floor.
It’s high time your workload reduces. Ever since I fired Denis three months ago, you’ve had to fill in for him. Have you shown her around?”
“Yes sir. We’ve fixed up a space for her in my office since it’s big enough for an extra work space.”
“She’ll be making use of the spare room in my office. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
Both of them stare at me like I had just committed an abomination with what I uttered.
“Veronica is there something you want to say?”
“No sir. It’s just that every time you mentioned you needed something to do with that room and I talked about turning it to an office or private waiting room for your special guests you’ve rejected the idea saying you don’t want your office crowded.”
I have always wanted my personal space at work and that’s why I have a waiting room for my visitors and I have business meetings in the meeting room. If I was going to successfully accomplish my plan, I wouldn’t be able to do it from a thousand miles. Veronica’s office is a stone throw from yours and why not invite her into your bed since you want her very close to you.
“Whatever.” “Sir?”
Tell me I did not just say that aloud.
“Not you. She’s new and I want to be sure she knows what she’s doing. I’m not ready to take chances.”
That makes more sense. “Ok sir.”
“Veronica can you get me the files I requested from the legal department?”
“Sure sir.” Once I’m sure she’s out of ear’s shot, I proceed to speak with Cara.
It’s not even up to four hours on the job and she has lost your ability to speak.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything is perfectly fine.” She responds.
Of course nothing is fine. I could easily tell that was a sarcastic response but I let it go. I don’t want anyone suspecting anything between us.
“Follow me.” “Yes sir.”
We get to my office and I slide my card over the door making it open. “Here’s your new work space.”
“Yes sir.”
I know I said we should be formal but for some weird reasons, I suddenly don’t feel comfortable about it.
“I’ll have someone set it up right away then you can move in today.” “Okay sir. Will that be all sir?”
I look over to the door and once I'm sure it's closed, I move closer to her.
“Sir?” she says taking two steps backwards.
“Enough with the sirs. You can call me Liam when we are alone.”
I gently hold her hand and she suddenly flinches. Did I do something wrong? It better not be what I'm thinking because I'm going to end him.
“Did I do something wrong Cara?” “No sir.”
This ‘sir’ thing was starting to irritate me. “Did someone hurt you?”
The silence was infuriating.
“Tell me his name. Where he lives, I don't care what part of planet Earth he's in. I'll find him.”
“What? No. No one hurt me the way you think.” “What made you flinch?”
“Just last night you didn't care if I died or not and now you are about to go haywire because someone may or may not have hurt me.”
“Cara Bloom, answer my question. I'm losing my patient.” “Yes sir. It's your fault I'm hurt.”
“My fault? Cara Bloom?”
“You lied to me that your assistant resumes by 6 a. m and in a bid to get to work in time, I slammed the door against my finger. Only to get to work and find out everyone resumes by 7 a. m we'll except security.”
“I’m sorry I didn't know I said 6 a. m. Let me take a look at it.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that? Like that's a solution to my almost smashed finger.”
“Everyone?”
“JJ and now you.” “Who is JJ?”
“Just Jeffrey.” she says smiling.
What on earth is making her smile? This is the first time I'm seeing her genuinely smiling since she returned. Once upon a time, that smile did many things to me especially when it was as a result of something I did.
“Who is Just Jeffrey?” I ask not so happy with the situation.
“I think he secures the first floor. He said he finished from our college unfortunately I do not recognize him.”
“Jeffrey James?”
“I didn't get his last name.”
“He is the only Jeffrey on the ground floor.” I gently lift her hand.
“Which of the fingers?”
“This and this but I think the impact was more on the index finger.” “We are going to see the doctor immediately.”
“It’s not that serious.”
“Your joking right? Can't you tell there is a blood clot at the tip of your finger?”
“I’ll see the doctor after work. There's no way I'll let you drive me to see a doctor. You specifically stated that you don't want to send the wrong signal to people.”
I massage the fingers as gently as I can. The doorbell rings causing her to rapidly remove her hands from mine. She hurries to the corner of the room and began pacing leaving me in complete shock.
“ Open.” the door opens at my command.
Veronica strolls into the room and hands me the files I requested for.
“Thank God you brought the ice pack. Did you know about the accident?”
“Not until Jeffrey requested that I take this up for her. It was then he told me the purpose of the ice pack.”
I'm not comfortable with this Jeffrey guy at all. You commended him last year on how good he is and suddenly he has become a discomfort because he is being a perfect gentleman?
“She won't be needing it. Throw it in the trash and send for Dr Grendel right away.”
“Your family physiotherapist?” she asks, shock written all over her face.
“ Is there another Dr Grendel you know of?” “I’m sorry. I'll get him right away.”
I watch Cara still pacing around the corner of the room. I hate that this is all my fault. Isn’t the plan to make her suffer? You are not supposed to be concerned!